The Pein in His Heart
by FightingxDreamer
Summary: Some say it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, but they have obviously never lost. Nagato loved and lost, and look how that turned out...  INDEFINATE HIATUS
1. Confessions From God

Who can really judge what makes a monster and what makes a man? Neither you, nor I, that's for sure. To know pain is to feel alive, to know too much, however, that is when people, become monsters.

My story may seem tragic, but i assure you, it made me ten times the man i could have ever been.

You may know what happened whilst i was training with Jiraiya-Sensei, that my power surged and helped my friend's and my own life, and that two years after that, we were left to fend for ourselves, having learnt basic jutsu.

You may also know how i was forced to kill the same friend years later, in order to save another close friend. We had grown up and lived together, helping eachother to survive one day to the next, And in that instant, when Yahiko threw himself onto my blade and gave his life to save us, i knew that there was no fairness in this world of ninja, nothing could be resorted by verbal agreements of allegiance. Fear is what keeps peace, and that is exactly what i have done to The Hidden Rain Villiage, MY villiage.

What you will not know is what happened between these times, the years of companionship we shared whilst travelling across the land in search of followers, others who were dedicated to our cause, that is what i am going to tell you, then, and ONLY then, may you judge me a monster.


	2. The Best Laid Plans

It was raining. Raining like it did on any other given day in the Hidden Rain Village. Konan was keeping watch by a small broken window, whilst Yahiko and I devised a strategy with the few followers we had.

We had to infiltrate one of many prisons that Hanzou used to keep his least favourite people, and gather information on the structure and layout of the building, and, if possible, attempt a large scale breakout.

"We could use a small group to distract the guards, bring them all into this..." I pointed to the appropriate place on the small scale drawing we had managed to get hold of "...small courtyard, set up some explosive tags and take them all out in one move" I suggested. Glancing around, no-one seemed very enthusiastic about this strategy, obviously none of them wanted to be a distraction.

"Nagato-Senpai, I will volunteer to be in that group" a voice said from the back of the group. Everyone turned to look at the speaker, It was a Kunoichi named Shi. She had not been with us for very long, but had more than proved her worth in both battle and stealth.

Yahiko, who had more or less secured his place as our leader, said

"It's a good idea, but i think we should try to get them here..." he pointed to a small corrider near the entrance "...Rather than the open courtyard, that way, they have less room to move, and we can go straight over the wall and get everyone out. And as for decoy's, I'll do it. Shi, i want you to stay with Nagato, you two.." He indicated the two men nearest himself "...will stay close to Konan. The rest of you, when you see the flare go off, get in and get as many people out as quickly as is humanly possible. We pull this off, it'll be another step closer to getting rid of Hanzou, now everyone finish making preperations, we move in 2 hours"

Everyone got up except for myself and Shi. I looked over at her and said

"I feel a lot better now that i have you watching my back" She smiled at me and said

"I thought you were supposed to watch mine" She smiled and winked at me so innocently, though i knew otherwise. I got up and walked over to her, placing a finger under her chin to pull her face up gently. placed my lips to hers briefly and looked deep into her eyes. They were a beautiful golden amber, a stark contrast against my own black and white Rin'negan. Her hair was short, very uneven, and black with a very slight purple tone to it. She was beautiful. She was my everything.

She blushed a little and stood up, brushing herself down she kissed my cheek softly and grabbed me by the wrist,

"Come on, the sooner this is over with the better off we'll all be"

"You know as well as i do that it won't be as simple as that. I still think this is a bad idea when there are so few of us" I said, primarily concerned for her safety, at least her being with me i could make sure she was safe

"Yeah, i know that, but i also know that it's all worth it to be with you" she grinned and ran off te get ready, leaving me stood there gazing into nothingness.

I was sharply snapped back to reality by a shuriken flying through the window and past my head, barely missing my ear.

I ran towards the window and crouched down under it. Looking out i saw a group of 3 Rain ninja i had never seen before stood 30 feet away from the building we were in.

"Yahiko! We know that you and your gang are hiding in there!" the largest shouted. I guessed that that made them the enemy. I drew a Kunai and slowly, carefully, made my way to the roof, I knew that's where Yahiko would be, and sure enough, he was.

"You took your time" he said bluntly "Are you ready?"

I simply nodded, placed one foot on the edge of the roof as he did, and we jumped towards the enemy.

The fight was brief, they were only Chuunin level shinobi, no match for us at all. We killed one of them each, and took the third prisoner, figuiring he may yet have a use to us.

"Now..." Konan said to him once he was tied up inside the building, her voice full of presence and threat "...You will tell us everything you know about this prison..." She indicated the scale drawing "...and you're going to do it now. Do NOT make me ask you again."

His eyes were full of fear and his entire body was shaking. We weren't quite sure how, but she just seemed to have that effect in an interigation.

He eventually told us that this particular prison wasn't well guarded, and that there was only 3 Jonin in the entire area at any one time.

"I'm not trusting his word in the slightest," Yahiko said to me once we were out of earshot of everyone else "But if it's true, it'll make this operation a whole lot easier"

"Just be careful" i said bluntly to him.

"Just do your part, i'll do mine, and we can rest easy tonight"

I certainly hoped that that was the case.


	3. Infiltration

2 hours was nowhere near as long as I'd of liked it to be. All too soon we we're on the move, carefully avoid the busiest parts of the village. By the time we arrived at the prison it was noon, and tensions were running high.

"I still think this is a bad idea" I said to Yahiko as we took our position and waited for our men to return from setting the explosive tags.

"I know, you've told me this atleast three times since we set off, but we NEED those men, otherwise we don't stand a chance" he replied

"We don't stand much of a chance anyway" i said bluntly, drawing a pair of kunai in one hand and 3 shuriken in the other.

"We'll soon find out..." he stopped suddenly "...Here they come." He stopped and looked at me, his face betrayed his true feelings. He was scared. "Don't let me down Nagato. And if something happens to me, you're in charge" but before i had a chance to reply he had lept out of cover and ran straight towards the building, passing our men that had just left the building on the way, and quickly dissapeared out of sight.

I sensed someone approach me from behind.

"You know full well that he can handle himself aswell as you can" Konan said, crouching beside me. Shi and her two men soon followed and took cover a little further behind.

"It's not just him i'm worried about. Something doesn't feel right, it all seems way to easy." I said, looking over my shoulder i caught Shi's eye and smiled. I looked back to Konan, her face was as cool and collected as ever, she never seemed to be daunted be dangerous tasks.

"Well don't jinx us, lets go before he gets himself killed" she said calmly, and a second later she had set off, her two followers in tow. I signalled silently to Shi to move up a little behind me as we broke cover.

I jumped out and ran as fast as I could, Konan we to the right just as we'd planned, and I was headed left, straight towards the most densely populated part of the building, ready to open the cells and eliminate the guards there.

We got inside without any resistance whatsoever, and found the cells easily enough, but something was wrong.

The cells were empty, their was blood all over the place, and discarded weapons littered the floor.

I got a very bad feeling all of a sudden.

"What the hell's going on?" Shi whispered "I thought this prison was supposed to be in use?". I thought exactly the same. Then it clicked. It WAS going to be in use. It was going to be ours.

"The cells aren't empty, i can see ninja hidden in them, but i don't think they've spotted us yet. We need to find Everyone and get out of here, now" I said, realising the severity of the whole situation.

"What? but how? our intel was spot on." she replied. Her hand was shaking slightly, and her breathing had sped up.

"Deep breaths. I need you to get out of here, and tell everyone to fall back to safehouse C. I need to find Yahiko and stop him from using that flare. All it's gonna do is let them know were he his so they can kill him"

She nodded and quickly kissed my cheek

"Please be careful, I don't know what i'd do without you" she said worryingly,

I kissed her on the forehead, her skin smelt devine, and said quietly but firmly,

"Go". She did. I turned and counted the hidden ninja. There were six of them, five down on the lower level and one directly opposite me facing just of to my left. He was first.

I threw one of the Shuriken across the room, It caught his neck and he fell silently to the floor in a heap.

Next, the two furthest from me, each shared the smae fate as their comrade upstairs. The other three quickly turned around, just intime to see me flying towards them. I threw one of the kunai i was holding at the one closest to me, hitting him square in the eye. I landed on his shoulders and pushed off of him, landing on my left hand i spun around and kicked the next one square in the jaw, sending him flying in across the room, he landed in the doorway and let out a blood curdling cry, I guess he landed on sonething sharp, i didn't bother checking, seeing as it stopped just as abruptly. The last one ran at me and caught me in the stomach. Bent double, i made the first hand signs that came to mind. I straightened up and looked him square in the face.

"Katon: Gokakyu No Jutsu" as the fireball engulfed his head, and eventually his entire body, his headband flew off and landed at my feet, and i noticed that it was not a Rain headband. I picked it up and looked carefully.

These men were Rock Shinobi. What the hell were rock shinobi doin in a Hidden Rain prison?

I turned and ran out the doorway, over the one i had kicked, and down a long corridor. I could hear fighting not to far ahead, so i slowed down and kept to the shadows. At the next doorway i saw who was fighting. It was Yahiko, and Konan was with him.

The two men ordered to follow Konan were laying on the floor. There eyes were wide, blindly staring, without any life in them.

I clenched my fist hard and anger surged. We had walked right into a trap, hook line and sinker.

I saw who They were fighting, and my body went numb.

It was Hanzou.


	4. A Tactical Retreat

I froze mid-step, I couldn't believe we had been so reckless, so stupid, and now we were going to pay, and most probably with our lives. Hanzou was the single most dangerous person to run into if you were in league with us.

Their fight was intense, if it weren't for my Rin'negan, i doubt i would have been able to keep up with it. The most disturbing thing was that Hanzou was winning, against both of them, with only one hand. Knocking them away with immense strength, even managing basic Ninjutsu with only one half of the handsigns.

I closed my eyes and concentrated my chakra, i had no choice but to use the technique i had been developing recently.

I crept into the room silently, closing he gap between myself and the battle. Then, when I had just gotten into range, i jumped out from cover over the top of the fight, arm outstretched, palm facing directly down over Hanzou. He kicked Yahiko in the stomach, sending him flying into Konan, knocking them both to the ground.

Everything was moving like it was in slow motion, like every second was lasting an eternity. When i was directly above him, her eyes made contact, and for the briefest second, something inside me shivered, was it fear? or anticipation perhaps? Either way, i knew that this had to work. I outstretched my arm so that my palm was facing Hanzou and released the chakra i had stored

"Shinra Tensei"

The air between us became heavy, as heavy as you could imagine, and all of the weight was being thrown at Hanzou. He raised his arms to cover his face, or perhaps to try and defend himself, it made no difference, the ground he was standing on cracked and buckled, and pieces of the floor shot away in several different directions with the force of it. Hanzou was thrown backover and when he hit the wall that was at least 50 feet behind him he did not stop. He broke down the wall and continued another 20 feet or so before bouncing along the ground to a stop.

I quickly turned to see Konan and Yahiko running towards me

"What the hell was that?!" Yahiko asked when they were level with me

"I'll tell you later, right now, I suggest a tactical retreat, before we get into WAY more trouble" I replied

"A tactical retreat? you mean we run" Konan said "And just how do you suppose we do that? There are Hanzou's men AND Rock Ninja everywhere!"

"We're just gonna have to, otherwise we'll be back to square one, or maybe even worse, now lets just run for it" I shouted, and we did. I went first, through the hole Hanzou had just made, and turned left, back towards the forest were we had started this whole situation. Roughly halfway between us the edge of the trees was a battle, our men were fighting what looked like the rest of the Rock Ninja.

"Damn it, how did they know we were coming here?" Konan said as we got closer to the battle

"Simple," Yahiko said, his voice was rich with anger and fury, "We have a traitor. How else would they of known?"

"That can't be, no one here would dare double cross us" Konan replied

"I don't think that's our main concern right now" I interupted, before shouting to our troops "FALL BACK!!! FALL BACK!!!" But even as i shouted it, i realised that the damage ahd already been done.

When we eventually managed to get away and return to the designated hideout, there was only a small handful of us, and nearly everyone was wounded. I looked around to make sure that the building was safe before returning to were Konan was tending to some of the wounded men.

"Have you seen Shi since we retreated?" I asked her, the slightest tremor of panic was only just hidden.

"No, I thought she was with you or Yahiko" she replied without looking up, finishing off wrapping up a mans ribs. She stood and looked at me square in the eye and said "You know fine well what might of happened to her."

I turned and ran out of the room, only to run into Yahiko in the next room.

"WOAH, calm down. Where are you goin in such a hurry?" he asked

"Shi hasn't came back" was all I said. I made to go around him, but he side-stepped to block my way, "Move out of my way Yahiko" I said, through gritted teeth.

"You, have lost, your mind" he replied bluntly, "Because if you think you're going to abandon the rest of us for someone who is more than likely dead you have another thing coming."

"WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST?!" i spat at him, "THAT I JUST SIT AROUND AND HOPE THAT SHE'S FINE AND JUST HIDING!"

"No. I suggest that you just accept the truth. She's gone, and odds are she wont be coming back" He put a hand on my left shoulder "I'm sorry Nagato, but if you do decide to leave, you do it on your own" he walked past me and went to talk with Konan. I knew what they were discussing without having to listen in. He was telling her to make sure I didn't leave.

They didn't have a choice in the matter.


End file.
